中国成人英语学习的焦虑变量分析

中国成人英语学习的焦虑变量分析作者：张慧JiLin University吉林大学2000年3月Master’s Degree ThesisAn Analysis of Apprehensive Variables inEFL for Chinese AdultsMajor: English Linguistics & LiteratureAuthor: Zhang HuiSupervisor: Prof. Liu XiyanDept. of English, College of Foreign LanguagesJiLin UniversityMarch, 2000CONTENTS　INTRODUCTION (1)1. ANXIETY AND ITS EFFECTS ON SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION ( SLA) (1)1.1 L ANGUAGE A NXIETY & C OMMUNICATION A PPREHENSION (2)1.2 A PPREHENSIVE E FFECTS ON SLA (3)2. APPREHENSIVE VARIABLES IN EFL FOR CHINESE ADULTS (3)2.1 L EARNER-INTERNAL F ACTORS A FFECTING A NXIETY IN A DULT SLA (ALA) (4)2.1.1 Anxiety Caused by Cognitive-Processing Elements in ALA (4)2.1.2 Anxiety Caused by Strategy-Adopted Elemnts in ALA (6)2.1.3 Anxiety Caused by Self-Related Elements in ALA (9)2.2 A PPREHENSIVE V ARIABLES IN EFL FOR C HINESE A DULTS (12)2.2.1 Anxiety Induced by Natural Conditions in EFL in China (13)2.2.1.1 Natural Conditions Restricted to Limits on Linguistic Exposure................................ (13)2.2.1.2 Natural Conditons Restricted to Deficiencies in Educational Situations (15)2.2.2 Anxiety Induced by Empathic Capacity in EFL in China (16)2.2.2.1 Anomie Aroused by Language Shock and Cutural Shock (17)2.2.2.2 Inhibiton Aroused by Introverted Personality (18)2.2.3 Anxiety Induced by Low Self-efficacy in EFL in China (19)2.2.3.1 Self-Efficacy Reduced by Chinese Low Self-Esteem in EFL (20)2.2.3.2 Self-Efficacy Reduced by Chinese Learned-Helplessness Underlying Their Attribution (21)3. PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS TO DISPEL ANXIETY (25)3.1 P EDAGOGICAL I MPLICATIONS (25)3.2 S UGGESTIONS TO DISPEL ANXIETY (27)CONCLUSION (30)REFERENCES (31)ABSTRACT (1)An Analysis of Apprehensive Variables inEFL for Chinese AdultsIntroductionWithin the last few decades, based on the values of humanistic education and student-centered approach, several affective-based teaching methods including Curran’s Community Counseling, Lozanov’s Suggestopedia, Asher’s Total Physical Response and Terrell’s Natural Approach, began to pay much more attention to the learner’s emotional stages. They have been developed as successful techniques to induce in learners a state of mental relaxation and comfort intended to maximize language acquisition. Contrarily, the emotional reverse of “relaxation”is known as anxiety.Anxiety is one of the important affective variables identified in "Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis". Generally speaking, affective variables are those factors that deal with feelings, the emotions of pleasure and displeasure that surround the enterprise of task, such as, second language learning. They mainly deal with the emotional reactions and motivations of a learner and signal the arousal of the limbic system and its direct intervention in the task of learning.Internal to learners, anxiety is an emotional response, a kind of apprehensive state aroused by the attempts to learn a foreign language which strongly influence the learner’s Second Language Acquisition (SLA). In combination with motivation and self-concept, anxiety, as a debilitating factor, affects what a learner admits for further processing. In China, language anxiety has been an obstacle in English as a foreign language (EFL), especially for adult learners.Many factors cause anxiety. In comparison with a child's acquisition, adults experience more anxiety because they face greater difficulty due to the potential effect of age, cognitive growth, increasing self-consciousness and differential environments between the first language (L1) and the second language (L2). Besides, some internal factors of learners, such as, self-perception, cognitive processing and communication strategies should also be considered.In China, the problem of anxiety appears to be more acute. In this thesis, the apprehensive variables in adult SLA (ALA), especially in EFL for Chinese adults are analyzed in great detail, focusing on China’s special characteristics, both culturally and environmentally. Meanwhile, some pedagogical suggestions are also given in combination with the effect of motivation and self-concept in EFL.1. Anxiety and Its Effects on SLAAs a filter element, anxiety is one of the important affective variables that affect SLA negatively. There are so many kinds of anxiety: test anxiety, classroom anxiety, social anxiety, reticence and so on. Here, in terms of EFL for Chinese adults, only language anxiety andcommunication apprehension are concerned in this thesis.1.1 Language Anxiety & Communication ApprehensionIn the course of foreign language learning, many learners, especially adult learners, claim to have a kind of mental block or apprehensive reaction that impedes their ability to perform successfully in a foreign language situation. Such an apprehensive state, a kind of vague fear that is only indirectly associated with an object, is termed as anxiety by psychologists. Language anxiety is only one of several types of anxiety that have been identified by psychologists.Language anxiety is " a type of anxiety unique to second language learning and conceived of as something more than the sum of its component parts." (Horwitz 1991, P.26) It can be defined as “the feeling of tension and apprehension specifically associated with second language contexts, including speaking, listening, and learning.”(MacIntyre & Gardner 1991b)In general, there are two approaches to the description of language anxiety: (1) language anxiety may be viewed as a manifestation of other more general types of anxiety. For example, a test-anxious learner may feel apprehensive when learning a language because he feels constantly tested; (2) language anxiety may be seen as a distinctive form of anxiety expressed in response to language learning, that i s, something unique to the language learning experience makes some individuals nervous. Generally speaking, foreign language anxiety is considered as a distinct complex of self-concepts, beliefs, feelings and behaviors related to SLA arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process.There are many types of language anxiety such as test anxiety, fear of negative social evaluation, communication apprehension, etc.. Among them, communication apprehension is the common one, especially for Chinese adults in EFL.Communication apprehension is a type of shyness characterized by "fear of or anxiety about communicating with people." (Horwitz 1991) The difficulties in speaking in dyads or groups (oral communication anxiety) or in public (stage fright) or in listening to or learning a spoken message (receiver anxiety) are all manifestations of communication apprehension.Communication apprehension or some similar reaction obviously plays a large role in language anxiety. People who typically have trouble speaking in groups are likely to experience even greater difficulty speaking in a foreign language class where they have little control of the communicative situation and their performance is constantly monitored. Moreover, in addition to all the usual concerns of oral communication, the foreign language class requires learners to communicate via a medium in which only limited facility is possessed. The special communication apprehension permeating foreign language learning comes from the personal experience one has in understanding others and making oneself understood. Possibly because of this experience, many otherwise talkative learners are silent in a foreign language class. Here, due to its emphasis on interpersonal interactions, "the construct of communication apprehension is quite relevant to the conceptualization of FL anxiety." (McCroskey, 1977). Actually, communication apprehension hasmany logical ties to foreign language (FL) anxiety because it represents the anxiety experienced by many people even when communicating in their first language. Since the characteristics of FL anxiety in EFL for Chinese adults are mainly reflected in the form of communication apprehension, it’s necessary to probe further into its causal variables.1.2 Apprehensive Effects on SLAAs an emotional state, anxiety is generated through the arousal of the limbic system, the primitive, subcortical state of the cerebrum, which plays an important, though indirect, role in many kinds of human enterprises, including communication. Therefore, anxiety is "the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with an arousal of the autonomic nervous system." (Spielberger, 1983). As an effect of these responses, anxiety will distract from the task of attending to and remembering new items. It discourages the practice that will establish new items.Although anxiety can play a favorable facilitating role in some cases, it fails learners' performance as it is a kind of interference. Where SLA is concerned, language anxiety has been found to be an obstacle to foreign language learning. In fact, many second language researchers have long been aware that anxiety is often associated with language learning in a negative way. It has been found that low achievers show emotional, inner conflict or anxiety. Recently, it has been hypothesized that anxiety plays a role in success or failure in FL classroom. Young (1989) believes that the anxiety in FL classroom occurs primarily because the student has to speak the FL in front of a group. Horwitz and Cope (1994) suggest that there is likely to be a strong negative correlation between FL anxiety and FL proficiency, that is, as FL proficiency increases, anxiety decreases. Therefore, a conclusion can be drawn that language anxiety plays a negative role in foreign language learning. This can be further evidenced by the case of EFL in China where most adults have experienced communication failure in anxiety conditions. Thus, anxiety will be discussed as a specific type of debilitating factor in EFL for Chinese adults in this thesis.Since language anxiety has so profound an effect on many aspects of foreign language learning, it’s important to identify its main components. Hence, an analysis of such causal variables of anxiety in ALA, especially in EFL for Chinese adults will be made next.2. Apprehensive Variables in EFL for Chinese AdultsTo analyze the apprehensive variables in EFL for Chinese adults, it is necessary to explore the causal factors of anxiety common to adult learners. This is because, in SLA, in comparison with children, adults will face more difficulties that arise from the differences of acquisition in such aspects as:Cognitive differences: native language is acquired in an unconscious and automatic fashion. Children are exposed to language data on an unorganized basis and they develop language in tandem with cognitive and maturational development. In contrast with it, SLA is a conscious and controlled process that occurs on an organized basis. In addition, second language learners, being older, are more capable of formal grammatical reasoning.Contextual differences: native language is acquired in a “natural”environment, whereas the second is generally learned in an “artificial”environment, the classroom. The acquisition of one’s native language occurs without any organized pedagogical intervention, except for occasionally controlled language input of adults. A second language learning is assimilated directly by pedagogical activities and is characterized by formal learning procedures.Motivational differences: first language acquisition comes naturally and not as a result of the discovery of its practical utility. Second language learners, however, must be motivated to learn a new language thus producing different expectations and results according to different motivational factors.To sum up, these differences force adults to experience more difficulties in SLA. Besides, some internal factors of adult learners themselves should also be noticed.2.1 Learner-Internal Factors Affecting Anxiety in ALAV olumes of anxiety researches have demonstrated the pervasive influence that anxiety can have on “cognitive, affective and behavioral functioning.”(MacIntyre & Gardner 1991) Having recognized this point of view, the further detailed discussion will be made concerning the learner-internal factors in which some cognitive-processing elements (cognitively), strategy-adopted elements (behaviorally) and self-related elements (emotionally) are involved.2.1.1 Anxiety Caused by Cognitive-Processing Elements in ALAWhen linguistic input is received by learners, it will be processed through a series of procedures such as editing, filtering, processing and monitoring so that the new language material can be eventually output. During this process, anxiety, as one of the important affective variables, determines how much the language input will be filtered and even affects the ultimate acquisition of language, thus playing a key role.However, it has been suggested that "anxiety causes cognitive interference in performing specific tasks, such as communication apprehension." (Schwarzer, 1986), which can be explained as a cognitive process seen at three stages: input, processing and output.The input stage i s concerned with the initial representation of items in memory. At this stage, external stimuli are encountered and internal representations are made; attention, concentration and encoding occur. Because fewer items are available for processing or later retrieval, anxiety-arousal at this stage has an impact on all subsequent stages. For example, in SLA, difficulty may arise if the language is spoken too quickly. Thus, at the input stage, anxiety may be caused due to attention deficits or poor initial processing of information.Therefore, people with high anxiety are easily distracted from the task because time is divided between the processing of emotion-related and task-related cognition. As for adults in SLA, if they have disadvantages of poor listening c omprehension, vocabulary deficits or cultural-background ignorance, they will be involved in the dilemma of misunderstanding, missing part of the input, being confused or even totally lost in the input transmitted in the target language. Thus, they willsuffer from input anxiety, a kind of apprehension experienced when listening in the communication. Take Chinese adults for instance, most middle-aged learners suffering greatly from poor listening comprehension can hardly follow those who speak too quickly so that anxiety is probably arousedin the form of communication apprehension or receiver apprehension. Such situations are usually reported as: “I get flustered unless English is spoken very slowly and deliberately.”or “I get upset when English is spoken too quickly.”… It is also found that the occurrence of auditory problems is related to the input stage. That is, the difficulties of sound discrimination and sound-symbol aspectsof language are largely responsible for those FL learning problems and arouse anxiety eventually.The processing stage involves the cognitive operations performed on the subject matter: organization, storage and assimilation of the material. This stage involves unseen, internal manipulations of items taken in at the input stage. Therefore, latency is the primary indicator of activity at the processing stage and potentially causes anxiety. Tobias (1986) claimed that anxiety impairs cognitive processing on tasks that are more difficult, more heavily reliant on memory and more poorly organized. Each of these increases not only the demands on processing time but alsothe possibilities of generating anxiety. In a second language context, the time taken to understand a message or learn new vocabulary would dictate the degree of activity at this stage. Consequently, atthe processing stage, as the task becomes more difficult relative to ability, anxiety shows greater impact on processing. Interference with the rehearsal of new information is an example of this typeof effect.In contrast with children, the processing stage appears to be more complicated for ALA because of their conscious learning, which can also be evidenced by Krashen’s Monitor Model. It claims that a second language performer can use conscious rules only when three conditions have tobe met. That is, only when he has: (1)time to inspect the utterance before it’s spoken, (2) to be consciously concerned about correctness and focus on the form, (3) to know the rule.However, in most cases, such as, in a natural conversation, all of these conditions can rarely be met. Normal conversation tends to be quite rapid and does not allow time to think about and use rules. The speaker’s attention is usually on what is being said, not on how it is being said. In addition, the learner’s conscious knowledge of grammar covers only a small portion of the rules ofa language since the structure of language is extremely complex. It can be said that adult learnersare exposed only to a small part of total grammar of a language. Therefore, this rarely-actualized operation of a monitoring function further strengthens the effect of anxiety at this stage.Meanwhile, as formal learners, adults seldom have sufficient time for the intrusion of their consciously learned knowledge. When the conscious monitoring process is being operated and progressed, the time of processing stage is also extended at the same time so that it has to be shortened accordingly at the next stage. In the end, inefficiency or failure may be generated due to this time limitation, which further enhances the learner’s anxiety level.Unlike adults characterized as “formal thinkers”, children acquire language in situations that appear to be “monitor-free”. They only focus on communication rather than on linguistic form. Besides, having benefited from absence of self-consciousness, children are less aware of thedifferences between the two language systems and rarely apply the first language structure to the learning L2 structure so that their processing stage is more simplified than that of adults. In so doing, on the other hand, children also create fewer errors derived from L1 interference. As a result, children experience less apprehension than adults when learning a second language.Output involves the production of the previously learned material. Performance at this stage is highly dependent on the previous stages, in terms of the organization of the output and the speed at which items are retrieved from memory. It is at this stage that learners are required to demonstrate their ability to use the second language. Performance at the output stage can be measured by test scores, verbal production, and the qualities of free speech.The output anxiety can be universally found in the cases of EFL in China. Even though Chinese adults are excellent in writing competence or have a large vocabulary, they still find themselves rather awkward, stupid or even frozen in communication. Sometimes, although they have an idea of the semantic meaning of an English word, they still fail to verbalize it forgetting or being innocent of the authentic expressive way in the target language by means of “phonetic entity”. Therefore, anxiety may interfere with the retrieval of the previously learned knowledge and the experience of “freezing”on an oral production can be attributed to the influence of anxiety at the time of retrieval. That is also the source of “just on the tip of the tongue.”It has been suggested that these three stages are interdependent and each stage depends on the successful completion of the previous one. For example, the difficulty in the performance at the output stage may be caused by deficits created at the input or processing stage. Therefore, the negative correlation between language anxiety and the second language production may be indicative of problems at any of the three stages, thus, generating language anxiety accordingly. Meanwhile, the combined effects of language anxiety at these three stages may conversely influence the adult learners who have a smaller base of second language knowledge and have more difficulty demonstrating the knowledge that they do possess, thus causing new anxiety as a result.2.1.2 Anxiety Caused by Strategy-Adopted Elements in ALAEysenck (1979) suggests that anxiety disrupts cognitive processing but that increased effort can compensate for the effects of anxiety on the quality of observed performance. Therefore, in SLA, adults always try to compensate for the negative role played by anxiety which are embodied in the adoption of various strategies. However, restricted by inadequacy of L2 knowledge and poor communicative competence, these strategies are usually abused thus negating the efforts, functioning conversely and decreasing the quality of performance. Eventually, these abuses of strategies result in increased anxiety.Since strategies vary intra-individually, each of the learners has a whole host of possible ways to solve a particular problem from learning, production and communicating strategies in the process of both acquiring and using L2.1) learning strategiesLearning strategies refer to the ways in which the learner consciously and subconsciouslyprocesses second language input. Here, strategies as varied as pattern memorization, overgeneralization and intolerance of ambiguity have been treated under the general heading of learning strategies.a. pattern memorizationMany learners develop formulas as a response to communicative pressure. That is, they memorize a number of ready-made expressions to compensate for lack of suffici ent L2 rules to construct creative speech, thus forming a kind of formulaic speech that has been observed to be very common in classroom learners.It should be admitted that, in the early SLA, this strategy could reduce the learning burden while meeti ng the basic communicative need. The important point, however, is that it is restricted to the performance of a specific meaning in a certain context. Once the communicative need is increased, it is possible, therefore, that the pattern or formula is hardly unpacked so that valuable information can not be fed into the creative rule system for the immediate production and reception. Consequently, the learner will be at a loss to “what/how to say”and fail in communication, causing certain apprehension.b. overgeneralizationThe strategy of syntactic overgeneralization can be defined as "a process in which a language learner uses a syntactic rule of the target language inappropriately when he attempts to generate a novel target language utterance." (Taylor 1975 P.74) A learner relies on what he has already known when confronted with a new learning situation and as he learns more about the target language, his reliance on his native language will decrease, the errors attributable to the target language syntactic overgeneralization will increase. Noticeably, many errors attributed to the inherent difficulties and irregularities in the target language itself can be explained by the strategy of the target language syntactic overgeneralization. Thus, these errors, regardless of their sources, will be generated sooner or later. Once learners are aware of the occurrence of errors, they will inevitably produce anxiety.c. intolerance of ambiguityIntolerance of ambiguity is the tendency to perceive such situations o f novelty, complexity or insolubility as unacceptable. In fact, intolerance of ambiguity appears to be more experienced by adults than children who are found to be amazingly indifferent to contradictions. As for adults, their intellectual growth produces an awareness of ambiguities about language and heightens the need for resolution.A general intolerance of ambiguity produces an acute awareness of the myriad differences in two languages for an adult performer so that the prospect of learning a second language suddenly becomes overwhelming, discouraging him from proceeding a step at a time as a child would do. Thus, the intolerance of ambiguity derived from an adult’s cognitive growth involves him in unacceptable, ambiguous situations with disappointment, depression or anxiety.2) production strategiesProduction strategies comprise the learner’s attempts to use the L2 knowledge they haveacquired in an efficient way. The example is the overuse of Monitor.In SLA, difficulties arise when performers become over-concerned with correctness in communicative situations, trying to check their output against conscious rules at all times and such performers become the Monitor over-users. The overuse of Monitor reveals the user’s lack of faith in his acquired knowledge of the target language. In nature, it stems from a simple lack of acquisition.In general, the overuse of Monitor results in hesitancy and subsequent difficulty in participating in conversation, thus creating the learner’s anxiety.3) communication strategies (CSs)CSs generally are devices employed by L2 learners when they encounter problems in L2 communication because their communicative ends have outrun their communicative means. Such devices can be shown as avoidance, repetition, lack of mimicry and literal translation.a. avoidanceIn communication, when a learner refuses to produce some necessary items he doesn't know or when he feels the likelihood of making errors, he will usually adopt avoidance as a strategy. In so doing, he is forced into coping with both the linguistic and communicative needs by other means, such as by circumlocution, which raises greater possibilities of making errors. After much avoidance, when these “evaders”find themselves in the situations where communication is required, they are less likely to do well than their more skilled counterparts so that new anxiety will be induced. This indicates that the more an anxious learner is, the more avoidance he will tend to adopt, thus conversely increasing his anxiety level.b. repetitionIn communication, sometimes, to avoid stopping the communication task, learners would rather carry on the communication task by repeating what they have said than simply take steps of avoidance.Repetition is extensively used when a leaner fails to understand others' intended meaning or when he has neither sufficient linguistic knowledge nor general knowledge upon which to rely. He will just keep on repeating what he has said in the hope that the inter-locator would strive harder to work out his intended meaning.Repetition enables learners to keep the communication channels open and to appear less embarrassed by avoiding the stopping of the conversation. However, similar to avoidance, which is not an efficient way to solve problems, repetition will eventually involve learners in the dilemma with further immediate information processing. Anxiety will thus be caused as a result of repetition in the communicative dilemma.Noticeably, by analyzing Chinese learners’characteristics, it has been tentatively inferred that “repetition CSs are specific to Chinese learners or learners with the same characteristics.”(Chen Si Qing 1990 P.173)c. lack of mimicryIn learning a new language, mimicry is a very important strategy for learners in gainingaccuracy of the target language. The one who becomes the best mimic learns most rapidly and achieves the best result.It is, however, not easy to gain such accuracy. A learner must be willing to give himself whole-heartedly to the strenuous business of learning the new language and must throw off all restraint and self-consciousness as far as the making of strange sounds is concerned. This is particularly difficult for adult learners compared with children because of the deficiencies of flexibility of both ps ychomotor skills and language attitude. Consequently, it’s quite hard for them to accept the target language and its culture by pure imitation, supposing that they reject all that is familiar to them. Thus, the lack of mimicry will necessarily affect adults' achievement of accuracy in the target language and increase their anxiety without understanding the idiomatic use of the target language.d. literal translationThe automatic habit of learning a new language is not as easy for adults as for children. Being haunted by the increased self-consciousness and greater sensitivity to fine discrimination of his own language, an adult will inevitably interpret the new language symbol through his accepted language symbols as a result of his experience. He is likely to develop such a strategy of literal translation by the practice of seeking word equivalents from his own language when he has established a direct connection between his experience and the new language.Literal translation or “word equivalents”, which seems to save time at the beginning, really causes great inconvenience in the long run because the automatic processing is actually delayed when the learner adopt this strategy by means of finding corresponding items or word equivalents between the two language systems. It may confuse learners or even get them into such habits as to thwart any real control of the new language and as a result, affects the fluency of spontaneous communication. Also, it causes inaccuracy in the use of the target language so that the cultural knowledge could probably be ignored or abused due to the inappropriate blunt match between the two languages. In this sense, literal translation is also the potential of communication apprehension.In conclusion, all of these above-mentioned strategies can be regarded as potential sources of anxiety in the different aspects in ALA, such as communication or situational apprehension. (see table 2.1)2.1.3 Anxiety Caused by Self-Related Elements in ALAThe generation of anxiety is associated with the inference of self-related elements such as excessive self-evaluation, worry over potential failure and concern over the opinions of others. An anxious person thus has his attention divided between task-related and self-related cognition, making cognitive performance less efficient. This can also be used to explain the negative effects of self-related elements observed in language anxiety, which will be expounded in three aspects:1) inhibition from language egoAs the very personal egoistic nature of SLA, language ego is defined as "the extent to which one’s self-concept is inextricably bound up in language." (Brown, 1991, P.77) In fact, the。